Chapter 126: The Raikage of Kumogakure — So This Is All He Is
Konoha field command tent —
The white-haired man stood in full Konoha gear, the oil-kanji headband he normally wore replaced with the standard leaf symbol for wartime.
Jiraiya stared at the tactical map in front of him, eyes distant, clearly somewhere else entirely.
Four days since Sakura's team had left. Not a word. His mind hadn't settled since.
Sakura was the old man's last and favorite student. If something happened to her on his watch, the Hokage would kill him. Personally.
And beyond that—
Jiraiya's eyes traced the lines on the map, brow tight.
Something was wrong.
Four days ago, Kumogakure had pushed forward in force — enough that he'd had to deploy substantial troops to hold them. But that was all they'd done. They hadn't pressed. They hadn't committed to a real engagement. They were just... keeping him pinned. Hands tied. Unable to move freely.
Real, feinted, feinted, real.
Without knowing what they were actually after, every response carried risk.
He needed to know their objective.
The tent flap opened.
"Jiraiya-sama."
"Kakashi." Jiraiya didn't look up from the map. "Take Shirakumo, Kurenai, and one Hyūga. Form a temporary squad. You're leading. Scout this area."
He drew a circle on the map.
Kakashi's expression shifted.
Three jōnin and a Hyūga sensor. A team that size meant—
"Did something happen to Sakura's group?"
"Four days with no contact."
Jiraiya exhaled quietly.
The Land of Frost wasn't large. Four days was enough time to circle its entire border three times. He'd been forcing himself not to think the worst. He was losing that fight.
"If we leave, the pressure on the front line—"
He didn't finish the thought, but it was valid. No active fighting right now — but that was exactly when an opponent launched a massive push. And pulling three jōnin from the line was the kind of gap that could shift a small engagement entirely.
"There's still me."
Jiraiya smiled slightly and stood. His height filled the tent.
One of the Sannin. One man with the power to rewrite a battle's outcome by himself.
"Yes sir. Understood."
BOOM.
Fist on fist. Pure physical force. Each exchange came with the shriek of displaced air; each footfall cracked the ground open.
They didn't look like people fighting. They looked like two wild animals trying to destroy each other.
"Vicious little brat — DIE—!"
The punch came with a hurricane of lightning. Sakura's hand shot out, locked onto his wrist, twisted — her hips dropped, her back bent, her legs drove upward — and she hurled the Fourth Raikage over her shoulder into the ground.
The earth beneath him disintegrated on impact.
Clean. Practiced. She knew exactly what she was doing in close quarters.
"If we're talking about vicious — Kumogakure isn't exactly in a position to lecture anyone."
She didn't let up. Her foot came down on him before he could rise.
BOOM.
A localized earthquake. The ground collapsed in a ring.
The Raikage caught it on his forearm bracers, grabbed her ankle in the same motion, hauled her in, and swung his other fist at her face.
Her palm came up and stopped it.
She pushed back against the fist and kept talking.
"At the end of the First Shinobi World War — signing a peace treaty while the Gold and Silver Brothers ambushed the Second Hokage."
"During peacetime — sending agents to abduct the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki."
"And ten years ago — using another peace treaty as cover to make a move on the Byakugan."
"Your village is a den of thieves, oath-breakers, and criminals. Every single time."
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH—!"
"The Gold and Silver Brothers were traitors! A mutiny! Our Second Raikage died in that uprising too!"
He'd only addressed one of the three. Sakura's smile didn't reach the corners of her mouth.
"So you're confirming the Nine-Tails abduction attempt and the Byakugan kidnapping, then?"
"You—!"
He was already furious. Now he was furious and cornered. He had no answer, and the combination was explosive — he grabbed her and drove her toward the ground with his full weight.
She planted one hand and absorbed it. Her free foot drove into his midsection.
His knee came up and took the hit.
The knee is the hardest thing in the human body, the most effective natural weapon — followed by the elbow. His strength was less than hers, but the geometry worked in his favor and he held.
"Kumogakure is a village full of cowards who dress up their cowardice as strength." Her voice was light. Conversational. "For pure reliability, even Sunagakure — treacherous as they are — edges you out. At least what you see with them is what you get. You people look like brutes but operate like gutter rats."
"ENOUGH—!"
"In this world, power is everything! Without it you're nothing! In the face of absolute strength, everything else is noise!"
They were locked. Neither giving ground. Neither finding an opening.
"Right on cue." Sakura's voice had no warmth in it at all. "The moment you run out of arguments, you fall back on strength."
"The Raikage of Kumogakure. So this is all he is."
"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU SHARP-TONGUED LITTLE—!"
He tried to lift and throw her again.
Both her hands and the foot braced against his midsection fired at once.
For one disorienting instant, the Raikage had the sensation he wasn't fighting a twelve-year-old girl. He was arm-wrestling something prehistoric.
The grip on her ankle was slipping. The fist locked against hers was losing ground.
The force was on par with Tsunade's.
"—Damn it!"
"Shi!"
The third member of the Raikage's escort finally moved from concealment.
Shi was a sensor and genjutsu specialist — locating Sakura's group had been his work entirely. Under the Heaven Concealment Array's passive sensing, Sakura had been aware of him since the fight began. She'd had no hand free to deal with him, so she'd filed him away and kept her guard up.
Now he was committing.
"Lightning Illusion — Lightning Column!"
(Chapter End)
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